With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin

The Assault Cloaked as Peace is pure Israeli propaganda. That they can claim a major Op Ed piece in the NYT to front this nonsense just demonstrates (again) the absurd state of our main stream media and the power of the Israel lobby.

Savvy large investors knew of several good reasons to dump BP stock. BP has had a series of disasters related to cost cutting and poor maintenance. The pipeline spills in Alaska and the Texas City refinery explosions were bad enough. Then reports filtered out about severe problems with the Atlantis platform. But the icing on the cake was BPs own report to the MMS of collapsing production from the Thunderhorse platform.

Anyway, no one needed a crystal ball to see that BP was a financial disaster waiting to happen. Nothing to do with Deepwater Horizon. Ironically, DWH was the pride of the fleet with a sterling safety record. DWH was sunk largely due to the arrogance and stupidity of BP company man on the rig Donald Vidrine, who ignored good advice from Transocean engineers. The fact that a nimrod like Vidrine was in a position of responsibility is symptomatic of a sick corporate culture at BP, and related to all of BPs other problems.

Savvy large investors knew of several good reasons to dump BP stock. BP has had a series of disasters related to cost cutting and poor maintenance. The pipeline spills in Alaska and the Texas City refinery explosions were bad enough. Then reports filtered out about severe problems with the Atlantis platform. But the icing on the cake was BPs own report to the MMS of collapsing production from the Thunderhorse platform.

Anyway, no one needed a crystal ball to see that BP was a financial disaster waiting to happen. Nothing to do with Deepwater Horizon. Ironically, DWH was the pride of the fleet with a sterling safety record. DWH was sunk largely due to the arrogance and stupidity of BP company man on the rig Donald Vidrine, who ignored good advice from Transocean engineers. The fact that a nimrod like Vidrine was in a position of responsibility is symptomatic of a sick corporate culture at BP, and related to all of BPs other problems.

Here we go again with the "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns"...but at least the DOI is admitting that the 'official' estimate of the oil flow is at the low end of the low end of the estimates.

"To the extent that there are other unknown processes that remove oil naturally from the system that are unaccounted for, there may be “unknown unknowns” in this analysis as well. Therefore, further scientific investigation could push these estimates higher." ... "It would only account for the known unknowns, but not the unknown unknowns that might be revealed if one could actually calibrate these methods against a known flow rate given the complex multiphase and flow behaviors at high pressure. The experts concluded that the effect of the unknown unknowns made it more difficult toproduce a reliable upper bound on the flow rate."

"An entirely alternative theory of oil formation has existed since the early 1950’s in Russia, almost unknown to the West. It claims conventional American biological origins theory is an unscientific absurdity that is un-provable."

Who cares. Evolution can't be "proven" either, though the best theories have potent predictive power.

M. King Hubbert got it right with his very powerful PREDICTIVE theory of oil well depletion. US in ~1970, world in ~2000 (he missed that by a few years).

If Earth really has an all-you-can eat oil buffet in its creamy center, why are all the great fields crashing, and why are we drilling a mile beneath the ocean?

I'm sure you know all that...you probably were just asking a question about Russian results...but I had to rant.

These Oil-Eating Microbes definitely look like the ticket. Seems like an FTW blogger also pointed this out a couple or so weeks ago.... Check it out, right here on this Thursday, June 03, 2010 FTW blogspot front page:

You're of course perfectly correct, "BP does not want to 'Eat Up' the Oil, they want to 'Recover', use SELL, as much as they can, no matter how many die!" I was just being rhetorical, facetious, filling in time, twiddling my thumbs, fishing for the dummies ('us') to wake up to what's really going on so we can get this bullshit corn ball silly game over with.

Glad to see you still checking in from time to time. We're doing well over here... growing some pretty fair garden, living kinda like pre-Columbian Wampanoag Moravian Americans. Consuming very little petroleum but way too much of it still; like money, it's virtually impossible to avoid.

Drop a nuke on it. Spray it with microbes, hit it with tons of toxic dispersants. Surely technology can solve all the problems technology creates. Nicht war?

In fact, the notion that "just over the horizon, technology will make things really, really good" is as old as steam-powered spinning mills. And it's always failed to satisfy. The world was a nicer place before the industrial revolution. It was a nicer place before the first oil well started gushing. It was a nicer place when I was born. It was a nicer place a few months back. And blundering technology is the reason it is not so nice today.

You don't know what it would do to the world to throw boatloads of "microbes" into the ocean. Nobody does. Why can't anybody accept that this cock-up is a direct result of doing stuff we don't understand? Why can't people just stop trying to do MORE stuff we don't understand while continuing to do more of the SAME stuff we don't understand?

I can just see the arguments later: we can't drill in the ocean because of these damned environmentalists so we better jump on CLEAN AND SAFE NUCLEAR POWER!

I am not a joiner, or Missionary, I have found Value, even an underlying commonality, in all unknown/unknowable faith' teachings, even in the profession of none(?).

I, MYSELF, alone, have to take responsibility for where we are;I can not shuttle the blame to another, my brother, or least ofall someone else posting on FTW!My posts are AIMED at those who seem bent on claiming they could have, were able to/DID(except for),MAKE A DIFFERENCE.I AM, we all are accountable for where we are; did you demandregression, have you always "Line Dried" your clothing,were you shot,or tortured to prevent "Improvement"?I allowed myself to be drafted, & "served Honorably", because it was"Better" than fleeing or going to jail. I stood by as our food reserves were reduced, and then declared "Unnecessary"!

http://tinyurl.com/33gxdun

MY "playing the game", instead of continuing to farm, as my uncle had, with Horse's, & "Organic", before it had a name! MY "OH-AHH" at every improvement, with little thought of the ultimate cost, has brought Me--along with you all, to where we are with "Deepwater Horizon"!Did you really think it would become safer to tap a decreasing supply?

Wheels:

Have you ever followed a horse across a 20 Acre field, rode a Spring (Dump)Rake, or Corn Binder at 2 mile per hour? If you were your Grandfather, you would want to make it as easy on your "locomotion" as possible,unlike a Gas engine, a tired Horse works less, dies sooner, And thatClydesdale could just take your head off!

Short, wide wheels forced by "Refined" energy are just part of the negative aspects of "Technology" we have to overcome, in order to return to a "simpler" (more labor intensive), lifestyle.How are you going to keep your Horse, or Cow, when many want to eat it?The future is not a walk in the park, if fish are OK 40 miles offshore, how are you going to get them? You and the 10 others you can't/won't agree with?

Jenna requests/BEGS for help!

"As you know, 9/11 was an attack on our nation that killed nearly 3000. What you may not know is that thousands of people are now sick as a result of the World Trade Center attacks from breathing in toxic fumesand dust that resulted from the collapse and burning of the Twin Towers.Some of those people were the brave responders who engaged in rescue and recovery operations and some were people who lived, worked or attended school in the densely populated area around the World Trade Center --the civilians who were targeted by the terrorists, and who then courageously rebuilt their communities and their lives in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in US history."

Get real; the USA has never faced up to any Responsibility, from Johnstown to the returning Vets. of Today, returning to neglect, & Suicide, the Murder of those they love.We all are part of an experiment, as in Germany, & Japan, in and after WWII; they have to know what to expect as everything comes apart!

Just a heads up, that article on one in seven Sacramento businesses being closed is from February. It freaked me out when I read it because our business address is listed in the article as vacant! Then I saw the date. :)